text:
The state of Alaska has released 24,199 printed pages of emails from Sarah Palin's tenure as governor, ranging from her 2006 inauguration to the 2008 presidential campaign. And for the most part, the media and the public have found themselves shocked--to learn how pedestrian the trove turns out to be. "No big revelations," read a Reuters headline. "The bombshell that wasn't," sighed Yahoo! News.
Indeed, a large portion of the emails seems to confirm already-well-known Palin lore: her feuds with the Alaska state senate president, her association with a controversial pastor. The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the emails was submitted by news organizations way back in 2008, leaving some political journalists to question whether they have any news relevance now. "Sincere question. Sarah Palin is not a candidate, not an elected official, not a party official. Why do we care about her emails again?" tweeted the Washington Post's Greg Sargent. The answer, of course, is because she's Sarah Palin, and buried deep in the otherwise bland correspondence, some fascinating nuggets can be found, like her stances on climate change and gay rights (not as firm as some Tea Partiers might prefer.) From her praise for President Obama to her jokes with George W. Bush, read about the juiciest emails.
Plus, see our full coverage here.
1. Kind Words for Obama
In an email dated August 4, 2008, from her Yahoo account—just three weeks before joining Sen. John McCain's ticket—Palin wrote that Obama had given a "great speech" in Michigan, and praised his mention of Alaska. "We need to take advantage of this a[nd] write a statement saying he's right on," she wrote. In a follow-up email, Palin added that Obama "did say 'yay' to our pipeline. Pretty cool. Wrong candidate."
2. Climate Change a 'Top' Issue
Although she would later dismiss climate change as "junk science," Palin didn't always feel that way. In an email dated Sept. 15, 2008, she wrote that "climate change is the top issue for our state." Later in her political career, Palin distanced herself from such a stance, at one point calling climate science "junk."
3. Her Own Controversial Pastor
Obama has Reverend Jeremiah Wright and Palin has Pastor John Hagee. McCain rejected an endorsement from Hagee, an avowedly anti-Semitic zealot, in 2008, citing his hate speech as the reason. But in a May 3, 2007 email, Palin asked her scheduler to see if she could attend one of Hagee's events at the Juneau Christian Center in June. When Palin learned she couldn't make it, she wrote back, "I should try to get back to juno for this one."
4. Hesitant on Social Issues
Palin is well known for her social conservative bona fides, so it's fairly shocking to see that in an email dated March 16, 2007, she wrote that she was "torn" about endorsing a ballot question outlawing benefits for same-sex couples, supported by the Alaska Family Coalition. "My belief is administration should NOT attempt to sway the outcome of ballot props … my belief that we weren't supposed to try to sway the vote once it's in the hands of the people," she wrote.
5. Denying Bristol's Pregnancy...While Bristol Is Pregnant
When rumors began circulating that her 18-year-old daughter Bristol was pregnant in April 2008, the hands-on Mama Grizzly scoffed at the news, writing that the rumors are "pretty pathetic." (PDF) What's more, she blamed Alaska state senate president Lyda Green and her staff for brewing lies: "Flippin' Unbelievable. Wouldn't you think they'd be afraid of being proved wrong when they rumor around the building like that?…hopefully it'll be another reason why reporters and the public can't trust that odd group of strange people." The media has found no email records of Palin rescinding her accusations after learning that Bristol would indeed give birth to her son in December 2008—eight months after the "rumors" began circulating.
6. VP Buzz and Dubya
Palin's time as governor reveals she had a habit of forwarding messages to her staff from people supportive of her vice-presidential bid. One such message came from George W. Bush. "The [president] and I spoke about military, [including] Track's deployment and how Iraq is a different place than it was a year ago," Palin wrote to her chief of staff Mike Mizich, referring to an encounter she had with the then-president in early August. "He also spoke about (and we joked about) VP buzz."
7. Asking God for Budget Help
Palin asked for divine guidance when she was faced with a group of Republicans demanding she make budget reductions. "I have been praying for wisdom on this ... God will have to show me what to do on the people's budget because I don't yet know the right path ... He will show me though," she wrote in an email to Tom Irwin, a close adviser and senior official at the Alaskan Department of Natural Resources. Palin has referred to the oil pipeline she supported as "God's will."
8. Deflecting the Early Trig Rumors
In the 2008 presidential election, rumors circulated that Trig Palin was actually the son of Sarah's daughter Bristol, despite any evidence to support the claim. Emails show the rumor started long before that, with Palin sending an email over a week before Trig's birth blaming a political opponent for the rumor. "Sounds like The Bristol rumor was started and continues via Lyda's office," she wrote to staff and her husband. Lyda Green, a Republican, was senate president at the time and a frequent opponent of Sarah's. "Bristol does want it squashed — we just don't know how to do so without making it a bigger issue. . . . I figured it was them or [former Palin staffer John] Bitney," she wrote. Several weeks late Palin emailed staffers again about the rumor, saying that Trig's doctor mentioned it and that Bristol received two calls from friends who'd heard it.
9. Ghostwriting a Pageant Letter
After a letter to the editor in the Anchorage Daily News questioned her absence at the 2008 Miss Alaska pageant, Palin wrote to three staffers in July 2008 "looking for someone to correct the letter writer's goofy comments, but don't want the letter to ADN in response to come from me." The easiest solution, of course, was to write a letter pretending to be someone else, and refer to herself in the third person: "When I first asked the Gov. Palin if she was ever Miss Alaska, (as Ms. Spry stated), our Governor replied, 'Nope, a mere Miss Congeniality' ... about 100 years ago it seems now.'" She continues writing in her own defense that "in this situation it was especially important to have Governor Palin...travel to Fairbanks that evening between the weekend's statewide Governor's Annual Committee Picnics and meet with seven US Congressman who were touring ANWR." She also made sure to point out that her husband, "First Gentleman Todd Palin," had spent "two days judging the event."
10. Courting BP's Tony Hayward—After Catastrophic Alaska Oil Spill
Apparently the the March 2006 Prudhoe Bay oil spill, the worst in Alaska's state history, was no big fuss to Governor Palin. She was pleading with BP's Tony Hayward to support her Alaska Gasline Inducement Act, which proposed to build a multibillion-dollar pipeline to deliver natural gas from Alaska's North Slope fields to the mainland U.S. But even BP refused to back the plan, believing it was a bad deal.
11. Criticizing Republican 'Party Politics' Weeks Before Joining McCain's Camp
20 days before Palin swept into the national spotlight as John McCain's 2008 running mate, she dissed her own party and even expressed reservations about attending the Republican National Convention. The speech Palin eventually gave at the convention, accepting the vice-presidential nomination, ended up stealing the show and turned her into a star. But in early August 2008, she was making plans to "keep the trip short." "I don't need staff besides Kris—we need to remember the GOP, for the most part... especially the AK machine... has not had any support or assistance provided our administration so our time and efforts will continue to be spent on serving Alaskans, not party politics," Palin wrote to her scheduler, Janice Mason, and close aide Kris Perry.
12. 'Toxic' Relationship With Alaska State Senate President
Despite the national attention, things were not so smooth on the Alaska political front. Palin's emails back up revelations from former aide Frank Bailey's memoir Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin that her relationship with State Senate President Lyda Green—a fellow Republican—had turned sour. In an email dated May 8, 2008, Palin wrote that Green wanted the governor's office to "bail her butt out of a pickle she got herself into." "I feel very 'set up' by Lyda on this one… we're being used," she wrote in the email to her staff about a special session Green called to pass legislation. "I want the bills passed, obviously, and I don't want her to get to put any blame on me for the failure of these bills to get adopted." But even worse, by April 2008, Palin was convinced Green was the one starting the rumors that Bristol was pregnant.
13. Mixing Professional Matters With Private Email Account
Palin maintained another private email account for most of her time in office, on which she mixed personal and professional matters. Emails that passed between private accounts are not included in the release because only emails (at her official state account and a frequently used Yahoo account) that passed through the state server in some fashion were included. But Palin used a firstname.lastname@example.com to conduct business with her aide Frank Bailey, raising concerns that some of her official business communications were not captured in this release. Bailey, of course, would later sour on Palin and write his scathing memoir.
13. Defensive About Showing Travel Expenses
In August 2008—before she joined Sen. John McCain's campaign—emails from Palin show her in defense mode over accusations that she was spending state money on personal and family expenses. In an email to several aides who had forwarded her a request for her travel records, Palin wrote: "Make sure he knows we don't accept the kids meals/per diems... And that the state doesn't rent me an apartment or nor hotels in Anchorage or the Valley on a regular basis." She also took a shot at Alaska's former governor Frank Murkowski, to highlight his personal shortcomings and scandals against her record: "Show him Murkowski's 'top advisor-my wife' memo also please."
14. "No Scientific Evidence" Polar Bears Are Endangered
In January 2007, Palin sent an email to her aides with an embedded letter from Mary Walker, the head of an Anchorage environmental group, which rebukes the governor for requesting that the federal government not include the polar bear on its list of endangered species. The environmentalist wrote in her letter that Palin's written request to the government "had several clear factual errors such as the statement: there is no scientific evidence.... that these polar bear populations are declining." Walker then provided the scientific evidence to counter Palin's claim, and disparaged her assertion that there was "no discrete human activities that can be regulated" when it came to the effects of global warming on polar bears' habitat.


text:
Play Princess Scoliosis Surgery Game
Category: Surgery
Princess Scoliosis Surgery is an HTML5 game where you will play as the doctor of this poor Princess. This lovely princess has scoliosis and it's making her feel uncomfortable. It makes her back look and feel awful. Her scoliosis is making her feel uncomfortable because she sometimes feel pain on her back. Do a back surgery on her and make her feel comfortable again.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
The legendary Motorhead main-man. © SALVATORE DI NOLFI/epa/Corbis
Two new documentaries about veteran British rockers are receiving their UK premieres as part of this year's London Film Festival, dispelling any myth about the music business being a young man's game.
Lemmy is a fly-on-the-wall study of the 64-year-old Motorhead legend, while The Ballad Of Mott The Hoople looks back on the career of the glam rock stars (including 71-year-old singer Ian Hunter) in the run-up to their 2009 reunion shows at the Hammersmith Apollo.
In Lemmy, directors Greg Olliver and Wes Orshoski shadow the Motorhead frontman over a period of three years as the group continue to bring their high-octane metal to the masses and finish the recording of their 25th album, Motorizer.
Footage from live shows in the US and Europe is interspersed with scenes of Lemmy in his cramped Los Angeles apartment, surrounded by piles of band-related memorabilia, not to mention an extraordinarily large collection of knives and Nazi insignia.
There are revealing scenes of Lemmy hanging out at his favourite bar (the Rainbow Grill on Sunset Strip) and candid conversations with his musician son Paul Inder, plus clips of him jamming with Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl, The Damned, Metallica and former Stray Cats drummer Slim Jim Phantom, the latter his partner in crime in a rock 'n' roll covers hobby band The Head Cats.
The Damned's Captain Sensible is one of several famous fans paying tribute on scene (describing our enduring hero as "the antidote to Simon Cowell's evil shit"), alongside Ozzy Osbourne, Slash, Peter Hook and Jarvis Cocker.
An engaging subject throughout, Lemmy speaks openly about his '60s beginnings in beat scene also-rans The Rockin' Vicars, his incident-packed days with (and subsequent dismissal from) space rockers Hawkwind, and, of course, the longevity of Motorhead.
He's self-effacing throughout, emerging as an honest and approachable man with a sly sense of humour. When asked about his fascination with Nazi artefacts and clothing, he says "I'm not a Nazi, I just dress how I like to dress. I've had six black girlfriends so far, which makes me the worst Nazi in the world."
The Ballad Of Mott The Hoople, from the directorial team of Chris Hall and Mike Kerry who made Love Story, the 2006 film about Arthur Lee's seminal '60s band, is more of a historical document, with archive footage playing as great a role as fresh interviews with the five original members.
Mott on stage at one of their 2009 reunion shows in London. © Tom Callins /Retna Ltd./Corbis
The movie charts their rise from a jobbing live band with little record success to the pivotal moment when David Bowie's All The Young Dudes gave them a long overdue hit to their subsequent falling out when Hunter began to take a more dictatorial hand in band matters.
Mott's relationship with volatile producer Guy Stevens is covered in great depth, as is their transition into glam superstars ("they looked like hod carriers in drag," suggests Roger Taylor of Queen, who supported the band in the early '70s), although there's no mention of the 2009 reunion shows, the directors having conducted their interviews two years earlier. However, brief footage of the Hammersmith shows does feature over the closing credits.
Hunter comes across as affable, if a little oblivious to the resentment other members began to feel towards him, countering that he was uncomfortable with the pressure of having to write the bulk of the songs. He concedes that the arrival of David Bowie's former guitarist, Mick Ronson, in 1974 upset the balance of the group, bringing in his own separate management team and refusing to talk to the rest of the band.
One telling quote from Hunter tidily sums up both of these documentaries in a nutshell, though: "Sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll is bloody hard work."
Lemmy is screened as part of the London Film Festival on 23, 25 and 27 October. The Ballad Of Mott The Hoople is screened on 19 October. Check local press for upcoming regional screenings. Both films are due out on DVD next year.


text:
To make the best use of our website, you'll need to make sure your web browser is set to accept cookies to ensure you receive the best experience.
For further information, please read our Cookies Policy.
Log In
Register Interest
BTEC Level 3 Certificate for Animal Inspectors (SRF)
25th May 2023
Online via Zoom, Virtual .
Event Trainer
Julia Bradburn was a great communicator and an excellent trainer. She had obvious in depth knowledge of animal welfare as she was readily able to answer any questions asked. Julia encouraged delegates to participate and I would highly recommend the Animal Welfare course by Julia to others


text:
HELSINKI – Artek has announced the acquisition of HKT Korhonen's furniture production of Alvar Aalto designs. This important move ensures the continuity and further development of Aalto's products, while also offering a framework for Artek's future product development. The history between Artek and HKT Korhonen dates back to the 1930s when Aalto and Otto Korhonen entered into an agreement between Artek, Aino & Alvar Aalto, and the furniture factory Huonekalu- ja Rakennustyötehdas, which now results in integrating the factory's manufacturing process into Artek's chain of operations.
This strategic cooperation aids in the process of building international cohesion in sales and distribution, a key goal for Artek since it was purchased by Vitra AG in Sept. 2013. Under its new owner, Artek comes into contact with a significantly larger and more international market. Vitra's strengths in procurement and manufacturing create significant synergies for Artek's proprietary manufacturing in Finland. Important development projects of the future will involve the integration of traditional woodworking skills with technology, profitability and quality control.
Artek's long history of expertise with wood, and Finnish birch wood in particular, began with the relationship between Alvar Aalto and Otto Korhonen that led to the development of new ways to bend wood, resulting in the bent L-shaped leg, as seen on the Stool 60. The new manufacturing process gave an opportunity to develop standardization – an idea championed by Aalto – and also mass production at the factory level. The L-leg was followed in the 1940s by the Y-leg, and in the 1950s by the X-leg. Korhonen's know-how of woodworking techniques combined with Aalto's visionary sense of form and his mastery of technology created the foundation for the birth of what is now the Artek design collection.


text:
The York County coroner's office says 68-year-old Margaret Mann was pronounced dead Sunday evening. A caretaker had called 911 after discovering her body inside the woman's York home.
Fire officials say the fire was apparently caused Saturday by careless smoking. Officials say Mann apparently woke up after a sofa caught fire and tried to get out of the house but was overcome by smoke.
Investigators say the fire filled the home with smoke but wasn't very intense and went out on its own. Neighbors in attached homes on either side didn't know there'd been a fire.


text:
Warfield is a real time combat strategy game set in the World War II era where you try to defeat your enemy in each level by either capturing the enemy flag or destroying all enemy units. It is one of the first (if not the first) true Real Time Strategy games on the Android platform that isn't a tower defense. You command your units from a topdown perspective and try to complete each level by positioning your units according to terrain, baiting your enemies into a battlefield of your choosing or simply brute forcing them down if the situation allows it.
Warfield is an ongoing project and a huge amount of new features such as new levels, new controllable and enemy units, new mechanics, balancing changes and quality of life improvements will be implemented on the game over short time periods in the near future. For now, enjoy the game and please stay tuned for updates!


text:
Let $R=k[x_1,x_2,...,x_n]$ be the polynomial ring in $n$ indeterminates over a field $k$. An ideal (that can be) generated by monomials is called a monomial ideal. For the monomial ideal $M=(m_1,m_2,...,m_t)$, the radical of $M$ itself is monomial and can be written as, $Rad(M)=(\sigma(m_1),\sigma(m_2),...,\sigma(m_t))$ where $\sigma(x_1^{a_1}x_2^{a_2}...x_n^{a_n})$ is the product of indeterminates $x_i$ s.t. $a_i\geq 1$.
A binomial ideal in $R$ is generated by binomials. I was wondering if we have similar theorems for the case of binomial ideals where we can write down a generating set for the radical by just knowing a generating set of the ideal. Eisenbud and Sturmfels, in their monumental paper on binomial ideals, showed that the radical itself is binomial. I am especially interested in finding generators for radical of binomial ideals in the case where char$(k)=0$ (or even when $k=\mathbb{C}$) and what kind of binomials generate radical binomial ideals.
Becker, Grobe and Niermann discuss the case of zero dimensional binomial ideals. Ojeda and Sanchez prove some results for radicals of lattice (binomial) ideals. I have also seen some results in positive characteristic, but they are not relevant to my research.


text:
De Pere, WI-based Cleaning Systems Inc. and its Lustra™ Professional Car Care division participated in the Grace for Vets Program on last year's Veteran's Day at its Richmond Street Car Wash location. Grace for Vets is a voluntary program for car wash operators to provide free car washes to veterans and military personnel on Veteran's Day.
Rain let up in time for the event with over 86 free car washes given to our nation's veterans. "It's a rewarding experience to volunteer at the car wash during this event. It is a simple way we can show our appreciation," said Kelly Anderson, a volunteer. A local television station covered the event.


text:
There is no clear sign yet that the death of Osama bin Laden has changed U.S. policy in Afghanistan. There is also no sign it has had any effect on the Taliban movement, which so far has been strangely silent about the death of its one-time ally and benefactor.
But that's not stopping fevered speculation in Afghanistan about how bin Laden's killing this week might help or hurt efforts to negotiate with the Taliban.
The policy of both the Obama administration and Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been to encourage peace talks with any Afghan insurgent who denounces al-Qaida, puts down weapons and accepts the Afghan constitution. The death of bin Laden this week may take al-Qaida out of the equation, and some voices are suggesting it makes a peace deal — and an American drawdown — more imminent.
That doesn't go down well with the group of about 2,000 people who gathered Thursday near the Uroonus hotel in North Kabul.
"We are here to show our protest against the negotiation with Taliban. We want peace, but it's very clear, we want peace with dignity," said Mateen Beg, a Kabul resident. He says he came out to protest Karzai's frequent peace overtures to the Taliban and to Pakistan, which he says was complicit with bin Laden.
"We have gathered together to let the world to know that we're glad that Osama bin Laden is dead. We have been a victim of what he has done, and he has misused Islam," Beg said. "We're glad and the world should know that."
Among the prominent speakers was Amrullah Saleh, Karzai's former intelligence chief who left the government last summer — many say because his anti-Pakistan positions began to clash with Karzai's desire for Pakistan's help with a peace process.
Saleh entered the rally jogging among a phalanx of body guards, like a boxer or a political candidate.
"The government wants to capitulate, but we won't let that happen," he told the crowd. He went on to criticize the way Karzai often refers to the Taliban as "brothers."
"If you're negotiating with your enemy, that's fine," Saleh said, "but don't pretend they're your brothers."
The crowd loved it, but it's fair to say the group represented Karzai's political opposition — the speakers included Abdullah Abdullah, who ran against Karzai in 2009.
Abdullah sought to tar Karzai with some of the anger at Pakistan for apparently sheltering al-Qaida and Taliban leaders.
"President Karzai has been begging for help from a country that every day is destroying our country," Abduallah said.
The gathering issued a resolution demanding reforms from the Afghan government, and hinted at Egypt-style street protests. But it's hard to tell if bin Laden's death in Pakistan has truly galvanized Afghans or just given ammunition to Karzai's critics.
Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


text:
There are some things that Electronic Medical Records do well and there are some things that Electronic Medical Records do poorly. To say that I need Electronic Medical Records to help me type is nothing short of ridiculous. Unfortunately, when engineers meet computer programmers and try to help health care professionals type in the health care record in the name of "safety," the results can torment those they're trying to help.
Take auto-spelling, for instance. I have the nasty habit of typing "Lungs: Claer to A&P" and marvel at the auto-correction feature automatically correcting my typing to "Lungs: Clear to A&P." This is an example of the wonders of electronics.
But when I type "DC Cardioversion" and the computer won't left me type "DC" because it wants to know if I mean "discharge" or "discontinue," the computer becomes intrusive, obstructive, and performs a service that should be right up there with water-boarding. I mean, is someone really going to mistaken that I mean "Discontinue cardioversion" or "Discharge cardioversion" when I'm typing my operative report? I could see this being a problem in the order-entry portion of the software, but when I'm typing by progress note or operative note?
Even better are the wonderfully useful letters "MS." These might mean "magnesium sulfate," "mental status," mitral stenosis, "MS Contin," "multiple sclerosis," "musculoskeletal," "Ms.," or maybe even "Mississipi." So, instead of being able to type a logical sentence without interruption, the doctor finds that that a drop-down pick list prevents those magic letters from being typed. It seems the chance that a nurse will wonder if you're prescribing a drug in a southern state trumps the ability to enter a simple sentence on the computer. This is, after all, how we're preventing medical errors.
But I wonder if these computer engineering road blocks are doing something much more insidious and detrimental to our health care delivery of tomorrow: like devaluing independent thought, reason, permitting the subtleties of context, and common sense.
No, better to torment instead.
Friday, May 22, 2009
3 comments:
- Jay said...
You really should get some sleep.
:) - Fri May 22, 10:58:00 AM CDT
- DrWes said...
Sleep deprivation has cause altered MS. You're probably right. I'll DC posts like this.
(Happy Memorial Day!) - Fri May 22, 03:15:00 PM CDT
What I really like are programs that insist on mouse entry where
keyboard entry would be much more
efficient, no switching back and forth. Touch screens are even worse. Prime example is the drop down state listing on order forms,
but there are legions of these drop down menus requiring mouseover to select. Then there is Cerner's order entry that doesn't have a built in dictionary: eg ASA, acetylsalylicylic acid, aspirin:
only one of these is acceptable where all should be. - Tue May 26, 09:54:00 PM CDT
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)


text:
More than a dozen people gathered at Laurel Hill County Park in Secaucus on June 25 to say "yes" to swimming in northern New Jersey waterways.
On the coldest day of the summer, and with a light drizzle coming down, Hackensack Riverkeeper and Waterkeeper Alliance members and supporters celebrated Swimmable Action Day with a mid-day dip into the Hackensack River as they lobbied for clean swimmable water.
"Today, Hackensack Riverkeeper in cooperation with the Waterkeeper Alliance, swam in the Hackensack River to protest the fact that 40 years after the Clean Water Act our river still does not meet the criteria for swimmable water," said Capt. Bill Sheehan of Secaucus. "All people have the right to swim and recreate in their local waters – and to expect better from our state and federal governments."
Sheehan took the plunge into the Hackensack, as did Richard Dwyer of Bayonne.
"It was warm," Dwyer said. "I felt clean when I came out, and it was refreshing."
For Dwyer, the public demonstration was an important one. Growing up in the Greenville section of Jersey City, he was within bicycling distance of Newark Bay, the Kill Van Kull, and the Hackensack and Hudson rivers, yet could not use any of them because of the pollution. He had to wait until his parents took him to a lake or the Jersey Shore to go into the water.
"All people have the right to swim and recreate in their local waters." – Capt. Bill Sheehan
Rachel Cook, director of operations at the Waterkeeper Alliance in Manhattan, joined the others in the river, and focused on the seriousness of the day.
"To show how it important it is to fight for clean water," Cook said. "To ensure we can use our waterways the way we should be able to use them, whether it be to swim it, drink from it or fish from it."
"The cold air and drizzle did not stop our protest," said Sarah Menchise, outreach coordinator for the Riverkeeper. "Those of the group that did not fully submerge their bodies waded through the water up to their knees."
Overall, Swimmable Action Day was a success, according to the group.
"People exercised their right to swim in the Hackensack River," said Menchise. "We hope that next year we will have a larger turnout and be one step closer to clean water."
Alliance members visited other local waterways in the New York City metropolitan area, including Union Beach in Monmouth County, Croton Point Park in New York, and beaches in Connecticut, to swim – or in some cases, not swim – due to the unsafe levels of pollution.
Swimmable Water Weekend is a global event, recognizing the important role water plays in communities. Between July 25 and 28, 200 Waterkeeper chapters and thousands of individuals from more than 20 countries took to the water to encourage citizens to celebrate their right to clean, swimmable waters, and to promote the importance of protecting local waterways.
Joseph Passantino may be reached at email@example.com.


text:
With a special category for integrated digital innovations in the field of air travel, the Crystal Cabin Award, the world's leading prize for aircraft interiors and on-board products, is extending its scope.
The new category is aimed both at passenger-focused products such as smartphone apps relating to air travel, and at digital applications that improve product management for airlines. Entries can be lodged online at https://connect.apex.aero/page/apexawards until the end of July.
The new category is running outside the normal entry phase for the Crystal Cabin Award. It will be presented on 24 September together with the APEX Awards at the APEX EXPO and Aircraft Interiors Expo Americas events in Boston, Massachusetts. The application phase for the other eight categories, traditionally awarded every April at the Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg, will then begin.
"Best Customer Journey Experience" comprises all products that help to improve the customer experience journey (inspiration, planning, booking, purchase, pre-trip, departure, in-flight and post-trip) across airline travel categories. It includes technical end-to-end solutions across categories including applications, artificial intelligence, tools, devices, software, programs etc.
The product should offer benefits for airlines, OEMs, and/or suppliers by offering new digital solutions and specific insights about passengers experience for the benefit of on-board technical utilization. The finalists and award winner will provide airlines and their suppliers an inspirational example on how to optimize the cabin for end-to-end travel solutions centered around personalized passenger experience.
This special category complements the existing eight categories awarded each year in Hamburg for the Crystal Cabin Awards: "Cabin Concepts", "Cabin Systems", "Greener Cabin, Health, Safety and Environment", "Inflight Entertainment & Connectivity", "Material and Components", "Passenger Comfort Hardware", "University" and "Visionary Concepts". Winners of the 2018 season included renowned industry players such as Airbus and Altran, Rockwell Collins, and PriestmanGoode with Qatar Airways.
The Crystal Cabin Award 2018 is supported by the following sponsors and media partners: Airbus, Aircraft Cabin Management, Aircraft Interiors Expo (Reed Exhibitions), Aircraft Interiors International Magazine, AIME 2019 – Aircraft Interiors Middle East, ALTRAN S.A.S. Co. KG, Ameco Beijing, APEX, ATR, Boltaron Inc. – A SIMONA Company, DIEHL Aviation, FERCHAU AVIATION Division, FIT AG – Additive Manufacturing Group, Flightchic, Flightglobal, Future Travel Experience, Global Eagle, HAECO Cabin Solutions, Inflight Magazine, Jetliner Cabins, Lufthansa Technik AG, Panasonic, Rockwell Collins, Runway Girl Network, SEKISUI SPI and Thales.
About the Crystal Cabin Award
The Crystal Cabin Award is THE international prize for innovations in the field of aircraft cabins. A high-calibre jury made up of renowned academics, engineers, specialist journalists and airline and aircraft manufacturer representatives comes together under the slogan "Let your ideas take off" to honour extraordinary cabin concepts and products. The competition was launched by Hamburg Aviation and is organised by the Crystal Cabin Award Association. The award, to date the only one of its kind, has been presented as part of the Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg every year since 2007. The trophies have become a seal of quality, known and coveted around the world.


text:
(visited by Wolfgang Vogel and Silke Heilig)
26-Mar-2003 -- On March 21st we started our third confluence-trip. This time it was Finland. We sailed by boat to Hanko (South-Finland) and then by car to the Confluences 64° N 25° E, 64° N 27° E, 66° N 29° E, 67° N 29° E and 66° N 30° E (Russia). This time the confluences were always drive-in-confluences, except the russian one, and therefore we were astonished that we were the first visitors.
This point was 2,5 km far away from the last road and 35 km from the last town. It was also in the wilderness and we could not believe that there was something like a border or so. We had also no visa or other paper from the russian-goverment to cross the border. This was a mistake because nearly one km ahead of the conflucence, we reached a border out of posts and a big sign which said "STOP" , without special permit no entering of the border zone. Now we had a problem and went back without visiting the confluence.


text:
What the Heck Is Sea Foam?
By Matt Soniak
Last night, meteorologist Tucker Barnes, from Washington D.C.'s WTTG-TV, was reporting live on Hurricane Irene from Ocean City, Maryland. As the night wore on, Barnes found himself buried in more and more sea foam blowing in from the beach. And Barnes admitted that he had no idea just what he was standing knee-deep in. ("It's in my face. As you can imagine, it doesn't taste great.")
Besides an engine treatment and a blue-green color popular on Fender guitars, what is sea foam, anyway?
I've been waiting almost five years to give this answer to a question on the site, and today is my day: It's just a bunch of random junk.
I'm mostly serious, too. Dissolved organic matter, like protein, fats and a grab bag of other stuff, is constantly being released by sources like dead fish, seaweed and algal blooms, and it's floating around in the ocean. Tides pull some of this stuff in closer to shoreline and as waves break, they churn seawater, air and all this organic matter together likes the world's grossest milkshake.
The air and the foaming properties of some of the organic compounds help the mixture form bubbles that stick to each other. When waves hit the shore, the foam is often left behind on the beach, and can then be blown around by the wind.
In hurricane conditions like we had last night, water in the ocean is more agitated, leading to an excess of sandy foam, and strong winds are able to carry the foam farther in from the shore. In these conditions, polluted water and sewage from flooded rivers, drainage systems and streets can also make its way to the ocean, creating sea foam with strange colors, odors and various contaminants. Given the conditions last night and the foam's color, this extra nasty version was probably what Barnes was wading through on the boardwalk.
A Seasonal Delicacy
While sea foam is pretty gross even under normal conditions, it's an important part of the coastal food web and acts a reservoir of recycled nutrients for some beach-dwelling animals. The menu even changes depending on the season. Researchers studying sea foam in South Carolina in the late 1980s discovered that the foam is composed mostly of macroalgae (seaweeds) in the fall, winter and early spring, and mostly phytoplankton (microscopic plant-like organisms) in the late spring and summer.


text:
Interview with Conductor Milen Nachev
Conductor Milen Nachev's storied career has taken him from home piano lessons in Bulgaria to mentorship with the most renowned teachers of the day in Russia to the United States and Carnegie Hall. And it is here in New York, with Shen Yun Symphony Orchestra, that he has found a new home, new gratification, and even a sense of destiny.
This fall he will be part of Shen Yun Symphony Orchestra's grandest tour yet, spanning 18 cities, including debuts in Japan and Taiwan, as well as a return to Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center. In the middle of the symphony orchestra's busy rehearsal season, we sat down with the conductor for his most revealing interview yet.
Q: Mr. Nachev, could you tell us about your very first encounter with music?
MN: I remember this moment. It was when my grandmother took me to my first piano lesson. And I believe this first encounter with music changed my life completely—forever. I was only 5 years old and deeply in love with my piano teacher. She gave me a lot confidence. So, one year later I was playing a children's album by Béla Bartók and she sent me to a national competition as a pianist, which I won in my age group. And the same year was my first public performance as a pianist. Of course, it was in front of family and friends—but it was a real audience, and the intensity of performance was the same.
Q: When did you then choose to make music a career?
MN: A few years later, at the age of 9, I found incredible pleasure conducting Brahms Symphony Number 4 at home—I was conducting one of those black vinyl records. I conducted by memory, as I had never seen the music score, but the physical contact between the music and the gestures was something that was extremely inspiring for me.
At the music school, I learned piano and choral conducting. And I was extremely lucky to have the best teachers at the time—teachers who not only taught me music, but were life examples for me as musicians and people. One of them, Professor Vasil Arnaudov, probably one of the most famous choir conductors in Bulgaria, was the main reason I kept studying in St. Petersburg Conservatory, because he did everything he could to promote me and send me there.
There I had a chance to study with an incredible man, Professor Ilya Musin—a professor who educated Yuri Temirkanov, Valery Gergiev, and many, many famous conductors. This was a teacher who could not only teach the technique and develop natural feelings about how to communicate with the orchestra through your gestures, but he was capable of teaching many things around the profession of conductor, to develop a complete personality and a complete musician—theoretically and practically. Every day, he gave us lessons about the way we should communicate with the orchestra, how we should rehearse with the orchestra, how to improve the orchestra within a very limited period of time, and to make them believe in their own capabilities. He wasn't only my conducting teacher; he was my second father.
Q: With this background and education, followed by decades of experience conducting different orchestras, what do you think makes for an excellent conductor?
MN: Dealing with the complexity. You need to be not only extremely well prepared musically and theoretically, you also have to be extremely well prepared with the history of music and knowledge about the capacity of every instrument in the orchestra. But the most important thing is that you have to be a psychologist. Our work is not with instruments—we are working with people who are playing instruments. When you realize this major point, the entire attitude changes and your only desire is to get appreciation from the people sitting in front of you and to see in their eyes that your behavior on the podium is a source of inspiration for them, making them eager to give their very, very best on stage. That's the biggest satisfaction a conductor can receive. And working with the Shen Yun orchestra I have incredible moments of that. I can see the inspiration. I can feel it existing in the air around us.
Q: The musicians of Shen Yun practice Falun Dafa meditation and follow the practice's spiritual teachings in their daily lives. How does this relate to the music you are creating and performing?
MN: Being in the environment of spiritual cultivation helps a lot. We are literally living together, studying together, developing ourselves together, we are meditating together—and this creates positive energy all around us. I have no doubt that this positive energy helps a lot when we go on stage.
Q: From reading reviews, it seems that audience members do often comment about how they were surprised by the music's energy.
MN: There is a saying: "Music starts where words end." If I were to compare our Shen Yun orchestra with other orchestras, I would say that in Shen Yun we are not just performing music, playing notes and tunes. We go deep inside the meaning of the music, even past the emotional side—most orchestras go to the emotional side, but we go beyond that—to illustrate the deeper meaning. It's like a secret code inside the musical text that we bring out to the audience. It's not necessary for them to understand the secret code, but the effect and the resonance is there.
And so, in many reviews of our performances, you see people from the audience say they cried but they don't know why. Or they say they feel uplifted, but they don't know why. I would say what most accounts for this is the idea that through meditation and personal development and personal improvement, we are capable of communicating with the audience not only through the surface of the music, but at a deeper layer of inner meaning.
Q: You are working with musicians from around the world. What brings them together?
MN: We have musicians from Australia, Asia, Europe, America—and these are, of course, top-quality instrumentalists and high-level professionals. It's really interesting working with people from countries that have huge musical traditions like Germany, Italy, or Spain, but the power of the music and the spiritual environment brings us together and makes us join our efforts.
The musicians here definitely work better together than in any other orchestra that I have seen. The main reason is that we realize there is a deep meaning behind what we are doing.
I actually feel extremely proud to participate in Shen Yun. For me, personally, the ideas of Falun Dafa corresponded with my point of view on life, and my views as a human being and an artist. And artistically, too, the reason I'm proud is that, in a way, what we are doing with reviving traditional Chinese culture—and this includes the music—is almost like our response to the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s in China. Back then, not only traditional Chinese culture was almost completely destroyed, but also many of my favorite classical Western composers, poets, novelists, painters were destroyed—literally, their works were destroyed. I call this a crime against humanity. The world's multi-century artistic heritage destroyed in just a few short years.
Q: With your education in the classical Western tradition and your Eastern European background, how do you go about interpreting Shen Yun's Chinese themes?
MN: First of all, we know that music is an international language. And second, this is an issue in interpreting all kinds of music—I've had to develop my musical intuition for many, many years working with different styles, with different pieces by different composers from different countries who lived in different centuries. All of that developed my musical intuition.
I also try to become more familiar with the folk side of Chinese music, to understand better the capacity and capability of Chinese instruments like erhu, pipa, suona, etc. And with this universal language, once the door of your consciousness is open, you can easily find the right tempo, the right articulation, and the right phrasing. Of course, I have friends and colleagues working with me—we have many discussions with composers and choreographers—and so I'm learning at the same time that I'm trying to give my knowledge to them. It's a two-way process.
Q: Could you give us an example of how this plays out?
MN: Two days ago we rehearsed a piece for three erhu solos accompanied by the symphony orchestra. During the process, without words, just watching the eyes of the three soloists, I already knew what they needed—what kind of tempo they needed, what kind of support they needed, how we could together develop the phrase—and my feeling was that they also implicitly understood. When I desired to start the phrase from one point and bring the phrase to the arrival point, they were completely with me—without one word between us.
Q: So it's a communication that's far beyond language?
MN: Absolutely. A different level of communication.
Q: What are some of the rewarding moments in that exchange?
MN: There are many moments which I can call rewarding. One of them is what we just talked about, the moment of full, mutual understanding between me and the orchestra. This spiritual exchange and communication between us is something transcendental, beyond words. The appreciation that I see in the eyes of the composers after performing their piece is another satisfactory moment. But, I mostly feel rewarded, and feel gratitude, for the destiny that gives me the opportunity to work with a multinational orchestra and have the chance to share with them my point of view.
Q: What do you think is this sense of destiny?
MN: I think it's this feeling that you find your own place, and when you feel comfortable and appreciated. That's my feeling—that I found my place. Even looking back—of course I had the opportunity to stay in Europe and lead one of the European orchestras, that was not a problem—but I wanted to prove myself in a completely different situation. When I arrived in the United States not so many people knew about me, about my recordings or my previous experience. So I had to start from scratch and had to wait for many years to receive this opportunity. And when I realized that this is not only a professional development but it's in deep harmony with my soul and what I feel about the world, I said: "Wow, you found your place. Now the only thing that's left is to do your job the best possible way."
Q: Is there any piece in particular that you look forward to sharing with the audience this coming concert tour?
MN: For me, every one of the pieces in the program is associated with different kinds of memories, because we performed almost all those pieces with our dance company around the globe. Each piece is particularly close to my heart—and not only because I conducted 119 performances last season. People ask me: "What's your favorite music?" Whatever I'm conducting right now is my favorite music. The music that I'll be conducting next year will be my favorite music then. So this is a very special sort of relationship.
Q: When people come to see Shen Yun Symphony Orchestra, what do you think will strike them most about the music?
MN: I honestly believe that they will be surprised by the sound coming from the stage. The sound will be extremely unique because of the combination of Western and Eastern instruments. We are working so hard to achieve the best possible ensemble, it's really very tough work that we are doing, but our desire is to be known for our ensemble. Also, we are working a lot on the balance of different groups of instruments. We always want to make the melody extremely transparent. At the same time, we want every single detail inside the score to be so clear and articulate that we'll bring a different spectrum of colors behind the melody. So we're working in many dimensions. If you take a look at the conductor's score, not only vertically—like harmony, balance, orchestration—but also horizontally, we are using every single way to make the music more impressive, to create a really serious impact for our audience. We want to give the audience not only emotional pleasure, but the experience of discovering a completely different world behind the music.


text:
[Renaud Schleck] somehow got lucky enough to find a GPS wristwatch in the trash. It had a broken LCD screen so its wouldn't be of much use on that next hiking trip, but he knew it still had potential. He used the GPS module and a few other parts to build this reverse geocache box.
Reverse geocache is a container that is locked, opening only in a pre-defined geographic location. We've seen plenty of these projects around here, like this one that talks, or this one which was given as a Christmas gift. They're popular projects both because of the unique method of getting at the prize inside, and because it doesn't take a whole lot of hardware to build one. Once [Renaud] had the GPS module he simply need a user interface, locking mechanism, and a microcontroller to pull it all together.
The interface uses a screen from an old cellphone and one push button. The latching system is a tiny geared motor salvaged from a Laptop optical drive. These, along with the GPS watch board are all monitored by the STM32 microcontroller which he programmed using OpenOCD and the Bus Pirate.
[via Reddit]


text:
The little town where I grew up — Manning, S.C. — was small enough that we could walk to church on Sunday. My Sunday School teacher was a Southern matriarch named Virginia Richards Sauls, one of nine daughters of a South Carolina governor. Miss Virginia, as we called her, never tired of telling us the great stories of the Bible. Her favorite was the Parable of the Talents.
In that parable, a rich man leaving on a journey entrusts his property — measured in what were called talents — to his three servants for safekeeping. He returns to find that two servants have invested their talents well — so well, in fact, that their worth has doubled. The other, foolishly, has buried his talent in the ground. The master scolds and punishes the foolish, hoarding servant, but says to the wise and fruitful ones: "Well done, thou good and faithful servants; you have been faithful over a little; I will set over you much."
That story, of course, is about the generous, productive use of gifts; about sharing, building and creating. I mention it because I am convinced that the people of public broadcasting — the local volunteers, trustees, producers, professionals and supporters who make up this enterprise — are good and faithful servants who are living out a modern reenactment of the Parable of the Talents. They do not eat tax dollars; they plant them and grow others. They are faithful over a little; they turn it into much.
I'm concerned, however, that everything those good and faithful servants have built over two generations is suddenly, seriously at risk
"We need to be candid about the real motives
underlying proposals for change.
What are we to think about would-be surgeons
who seem to despise their patient?"
For the next few minutes I'd like to talk about four things: I want to talk first about a genuine crisis that faces the nation we love. I call it the triple crisis. Second, I want to describe the remarkable local and national partnership that constitutes public broadcasting — a treasure not unlike our national parks, or the Smithsonian Institution. I want to sketch its true nature, because too many people seem not to understand it. Third, I'd like to say a few words about the dangers of loose talk, of careless rhetoric, about "privatizing" public broadcasting. If privatizing turns out to be only a euphemism for defunding public broadcasting in a way that would commercialize it — if privatizing, in the end, leads to breaking it into pieces to be sold for salvage — much could be lost, never to be regained. Fourth and finally, I want to suggest that there are better, more creative possibilities for this great national asset, this living tree called public broadcasting: possibilities far more hopeful and constructive than merely zeroing it out, or hacking the tree down to a stump.
The triple crisis
Consider the triple crisis that we face.
First there is the crisis of education: Can we send all our children to school ready to learn? Once they're there, can we give them an education good enough to help them become productive, responsible citizens and workers in a competitive global economy?
We face, second, a crisis in our popular culture — a steadily coarsening, ever-more-tawdry, popular culture, driven by marketplace imperatives to be increasingly violent and exploitative. Today's electronic culture of gangsta rap and kick-boxing superheroes not only makes it harder to be a parent; except for a few honorable exceptions, our media coldly abandon parents who yearn to give their children decent values to live by. Telling those parents simply to turn off the set if they don't like the violence and tawdriness that they see is like telling people to wear gas masks if they don't like pollution.
We face, third, a crisis of citizenship. Can we still speak with civility to one another? Can we approach our mutual problems in an atmosphere of shared purpose? We citizens in the center wonder — and we wince as our elected leaders vilify one another in an atmosphere of gridlock. We wince to hear commercial talk shows disintegrate into shouting matches and peep shows for the lurid and bizarre. Can we create what Father Richard John Neuhaus calls a civil public square?
That triple crisis points me to my second topic: I know of one institution that can constructively address every aspect of that triple crisis. It is an imperfect institution, yet one with many virtues. Its entire mission is education, culture and citizenship. It is called public broadcasting.
We could substitute, for that word "public" in public broadcasting, the more elaborate words of Abraham Lincoln: "of the people, for the people, by the people." For public broadcasting stations are not owned or controlled by monolithic bureaucracies a thousand miles away. They're owned by local boards, by universities, by school systems, by nonprofit civic organizations.
What could be more populist, more Jeffersonian? I can almost see Thomas Jefferson in his study, watching Bill Buckley's Firing Line debates. Jefferson, a child of the Enlightenment, would have loved the enlightening mission of public broadcasting. Jefferson the small-d democrat would have loved its universal reach. Jefferson the inventor would have wanted to meet the pioneers who brought the world closed captioning for the deaf and an audio channel for the blind. It is not far-fetched to say that public broadcasting is Mr. Jefferson's other memorial: a temple of minds and voices, a temple not built of stone.
That word "public" means something else: free and universally available to all. To enjoy its riches, no one has to pay thousands of dollars for a computer and software and a modem. If you do have a modem, however, we have a great new service called PBS Online. And you'll find many public stations on the Internet, along with PBS, NPR and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. To enjoy the riches of public broadcasting, moreover, you don't have to plug in a cable, or rent a converter, or pay hundreds of dollars a year in subscriber fees or pay-per-view charges.
That word "public" in public broadcasting refers to something else, as well: a mission that cannot be replaced by commercial operators any more than your public library can be duplicated by Crown Books, a public school replaced by a New England prep school, or a national seashore duplicated by a commercial theme park .
Our unique mission is service to teachers, students and schools. This year, hundreds of thousands of Americans will earn their high school or college degrees through courses screened by local public television stations. Millions of teachers will use classroom versions of our most famous programs; my ninth-grade son, right now, is learning about the Civil War from his teacher — and from a laserdisc version of Ken Burns's masterpiece. As I speak to you, teachers across the nation are learning the new Goals 2000 math standards through a service called PBS Mathline. At 60 colleges — 60 and growing — students can earn a two-year degree totally through PBS telecourses, without going to campus.
That is a side of public television many viewers, and many members of Congress, don't know enough about. That mission, however, sets us apart from every other broadcast and cable service in America. For us, you see, education isn't an afterthought, or window dressing or a sideline. It is in our institutional genes. It is central to our purpose.
Then there's our funding, public in the broadest sense of that word. Public television, for example, has between five and six million contributing members — five million householders who give generously to something they could get for free.
Locally and nationally, hundreds of public-spirited corporations underwrite programs — Mobil, General Motors, Archer Daniels Midland and AT&T. They can buy commercials elsewhere. Here, they care about another mission.
Generous and visionary foundations like Olin, MacArthur, the Pew Charitable Trusts, and Bradley also give.
And then, joining all these stakeholders in our enterprise, there's Congress. How much does Congress contribute each year to public broadcasting? Roughly 14 percent of the budget for this public-private enterprise. Fourteen percent. To put the question another way, how much of the federal budget does the Corporation for Public Broadcasting account for? One-50th of one percent; two-100ths of the federal budget. In decimal form, point zero two.
That's $1.09 per person, 80 cents of it for television. If you bought just about any newspaper in the country last Sunday, you paid more for that paper than you pay for public broadcasting for an entire year. Think of it: Sesame Street, MacNeil/Lehrer, Nova, All Things Considered, Morning Edition — all this, all year, for less than the cost of a cup of coffee in Chicago. All of public television's buildings, facilities, stations, programs, all year — everything — for a dollar a year. We could operate PBS for 10 years for what Fox paid for just one program: NFL football.
Suppose we paid for interstate highways through such a public-private partnership, with Congress appropriating only 14 percent of the total. Suppose we used this model to pay for battleships or Capitol Hill offices and staffs? Government leaders of both parties, who rightly care about frugality and efficiency, about stretching every dollar, would, I'm sure, hold parades in the streets to celebrate such feats.
Well, public broadcasting is funded through such a frugal, efficient partnership. Those who are taking aim at it, in my judgment, should instead be saying, like the master in that biblical parable, "Well done, thou good and faithful servants. Enter into the reward laid up for thee."
Cut down the living tree, or save it?
Some of our leaders, however, are speaking in a different way. They have targeted public broadcasting for a quick, sidelong choke that could mean its eventual extinction. They intend, they say, to "privatize" public broadcasting by stripping it of federal funding. The professional political term, inside the Beltway, is "zeroing-out."
So let me turn now to my third topic — privatizing, which at this point in the debate cannot be distinguished from another word: commercializing.
The opponents of public television deny that their opposition is ideological; they deny they want to censor or silence voices they don't like. After much complaint about that issue, they now say they have other, more innocuous reasons. Let us take them at their word.
They argue that the federal government has "no mandate" to keep funding public broadcasting; that noncommercial educational broadcasting is "not essential" to the nation. Surely, then, they plan to zero out, as well, the Smithsonian Institution? The National Gallery? The Kennedy Center? Federal support for the Internet? For these, too, are public institutions of education and culture, like public broadcasting. And these too, are not essential; not necessary to life. They are simply among the things that make life worth living, for rich and poor alike. Why single out public broadcasting? I wonder why.
Another complaint is that public broadcasting is elitist, a "sandbox for the rich." All the factual evidence, all the research, all the data suggest the opposite: that the people who love public broadcasting are the very same people who make up America. The majority of viewers who watch opera on public television, for example, don't have a college degree, and their household incomes are less than $40,000 a year.
What about the contention that public broadcasting is too expensive? The numbers you have heard poke big holes in that argument — especially when you add, to the numbers, the matching efforts that expand and multiply the federal contribution. To defund this enterprise for that reason — suddenly, unilaterally, and without consulting the millions of other stakeholders who produce far more of its support — would be pound-foolish, not economical. To people outside the Beltway, to thousands of local board members and volunteers, such talk doesn't sound like reform. It sounds like assisted suicide — a mask pressed down upon a patient who wants no such assistance, and whose family isn't allowed into the room.
Told how frugal we are, some of these detractors about-face, awkwardly, to yet another explanation: It's such a tiny amount, they say, it could easily be made up from "other sources" — from toy sales, for example, tied to our programming. The numbers don't add up, but who's counting?
We need to be clear on one important point: In our economy, there is no such thing as nonprofit venture capital. That relatively small amount of federal funding — that 14 percent of public broadcasting's budget — is our seed money, our risk capital. If "privatize" means to "zero out" (and we're told it does); and if no clear plan exists for replacing that seed capital (and none has emerged), then to "privatize," means, perforce, to commercialize. Take away public broadcasting's seed funding, starve it financially of its only venture capital, however small — and you force it headlong into the alien world of ad agencies and costs-per-thousand and merchandising, rather than the world of teachers and historians and community volunteers.
Surely those who speak of a quick, unilateral "privatizing" don't intend that to be the final destination. Or do they?
Finally, we hear that cable can do everything public television can do. Why not let a cable network, or several cable networks, program PBS — as a sort of re-run channel? Leave aside for the moment the implication here: the whiff of trickle-down TV. Ask some other questions: Is this in the public interest, or a commercial parody of the public interest? Would America like to lose what would be lost? Would America's existing commercial networks like such an outcome? What would such a scheme do public television's historic role as fount and wellspring of innovative program ideas?
What, exactly, is the vision of those who would "privatize" public broadcasting? Is it a vision that preserves the original dream, or does it torch and destroy that dream? They don't say. Is it a vision worthy of those public-spirited Republicans and Democrats of the Carnegie Commission, who created a new model called public broadcasting 25 years ago? They don't say. Is it a vision for a new and better future? Or is it, in fact, a death warrant disguised as a new charter?
What the people say
Perhaps our leaders on Capitol Hill need to listen to what the people say. A national poll conducted by Opinion Research Corporation was released today. It suggests that most Americans — 84 percent — want that small but vital federal stake in the partnership maintained or increased. Support for federal funding totals 80 percent among Republicans; 86 percent among independents; 90 percent among Democrats.
What do these numbers tell us? They suggest that the parents and teachers and grandparents of this nation — the people who live in homes with cable, and in the 32 million homes that don't subscribe — may want a better plan. They seem to want something more than vengeful zeros, or "privatization" schemes that threaten to commercialize or kill.
Fortunately, the people of public broadcasting, and the people who cherish public broadcasting all over the nation, have lots of good ideas. All over the country, local stations are becoming educational teleplexes. They're planting the flag of education on new technologies. They're turning the existing infrastructure of public broadcasting into a free educational launching pad into cyberspace.
People within the world of public television have good ideas, as well, about renewing and refreshing public television: ideas, for example, about insulating its governance and financing from the political vagaries of each appropriations season. The original Carnegie Commission, made up largely of Republican business leaders, called for a national endowment, raised from a few pennies on the sale of each TV set and radio. That's one idea. A reserve of spectrum auction money is another. Tax credits and "education technology grants" are another.
The local leaders of public broadcasting are forward-looking. They are highly capable of planning the future of their enterprise. Before changes are hatched that might be ill-considered, we need some decent ground rules. Let me suggest three:
First, all of the stakeholders who support this local enterprise ought to be invited to the table. Otherwise, any outcome is likely to be imposed, not democratic.
Second, the process should be orderly, not precipitous; careful, not headlong. Public broadcasting has taken 40 years to achieve its present excellence. Why all this haste to dispatch it in 100 days, by a quick, sidelong fiscal choking?
Third, we need to be candid about the real motives underlying proposals for change. What are we to think about would-be surgeons who seem to despise their patient?
Do they hear us?
It was Edmund Burke who pointed out that the true conservatism lops off dead branches, in order to preserve the living tree. Public broadcasting, however imperfect it may be, is part of the living tree: the tree of education, culture and citizenship. To chop up that tree and sell it off as cordwood would be violent and extreme, not conservative.
The volunteers, professionals and board members of America's public broadcasting stations are eager to tell their leaders about the worth and potential of that living tree. They see a historian and educator as the House Speaker and they say, "History: that's what we're about." They hear Speaker Gingrich discuss our need to nurture and care for our young and say, "Education: that's what we're about." They hear Speaker Gingrich's speeches about futurism and technology and the Third Wave — about laptops for the poor — and they say, in so many words, "Technology for humane ends: that's what we're about. Is he listening? Does he know we're here?"
Those same leaders look at the biography of Sen. Pressler and see a son of Harvard, a Rhodes scholar, a senator whose constituents, many of them, live in rural places or are too poor to afford a monthly bill for cable, great as cable is. They say, "We have a great deal to say to him. Will he listen?"
The people of public broadcasting — thousands of them, who have created jobs and educational services and community outreach projects out of their local stations, are ready to join in a discussion about its renewal and its future. But they will also fight the reflex to destroy what they have built. Today they know that millions of Americans agree with them.


text:
Pratica sacca per il trasporto degli scarponi da sci
de Massimo, 27/05/2020
Ottima sacca per il trasporto degli scarponi da sci.
de Massimo, 27/05/2020
Dakine started in 1979 on the shores of Maui, when Rob Kaplan set out to create a bombproof surf leash. With a move to the mountains, the business naturally expanded into snow sports. Some of Dakine's most iconic pieces were created out of the wants and wishes of local skiers and snowboarders who strolled in and out of the new office. Dakine pride themselves on the high quality of their products, and we are yet to come across someone who isn't impressed with their durability.


text:
Global Hematologic Malignancies Market is predicted to reach USD 85.8 billion by 2025 depending on the growing prevalence of hematologic malignancies across the globe. Hematologic malignancies are also known as blood cancers that are found in bone marrow, blood and lymph nodes. Hematologic malignancies are the fifth most commonly globally occurring cancer and is a major reason behind cancerous death in United States. This cancer is projected to increase widely which also increases the need for its treatment. This will ultimately influence the hematologic malignancies industry in forecast period.
Hematologic malignancies initiates in the bone marrow and consequently affects the production of blood and overall functionality. The stem cells present in the bone marrow support the development of RBC (red blood cells), WBC (white blood cells) and platelets. In cases of hematological malignancies, abnormal blood cells multiply abruptly resulting in various infections such as lymphoma, leukemia and myeloma.
Full Research Report On Global Hematologic Malignancies Market Analysis available at: https://www.millioninsights.com/industry-reports/hematologic-malignancies-market
The classification of hematologic malignancies comprise leukemia (acute lymphocytic [ALL], acute myeloid [AML], chronic myeloid [CML], chronic lymphocytic [CLL]), myeloma, and lymphoma (Hodgkin's and non-Hodgkin's [NHL]). Disappointingly, neither there are any defined causes of hematological malignancies, nor there are any proven methods to avoid it. On the other hand, there are various risk factors associated with these type of cancers like sickness (fever), constant headaches and fatigue.
The current generation lives a sedentary lifestyle which results in a large number disorders. Such an unhealthy lifestyle is a major factor and is predicted to accelerate the growth of hematologic malignancies market in the coming years. The increasing focus on research and development activities and modernizations in the healthcare field is estimated to boost the hematological malignancies market. Additionally, the increasing awareness among consumers regarding the availability of enhanced treatments is estimated to create promising growth opportunities for the market players in future. Conversely, the inflated cost of branded drugs and lack of reimbursement policies are likely to obstruct the growth of hematologic malignancies industry in the next few years. Also, the growing number of mergers & acquisitions are expected to fuel the growth of the market considerably in the forthcoming years.
The hematologic malignancies market is categorized on the grounds of disease condition, therapy, distribution channel and geography. On the grounds of disease condition, the market is divided into Leukemia, Lymphoma and Myeloma. On the grounds of therapy, the hematologic malignancies industry is divided into Chemotherapy, Immunotherapy and Targeted Therapy. Over the last few years, immunotherapy led the demand with a significant share in the entire market. This is due to the therapy is known to be most efficient and has lowest risk of side-effects. On the grounds of distribution channel, hematologic malignancies market is divided into Hospital Pharmacies, Medical Stores and E-commerce Platform.
Geographically, the hematologic malignancies industry is segmented as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. North America is expected to experience high growth in the forecast period owing to increasing patients of hematological cancers and the improved diagnostic techniques. The prominent market players profiled here include Bristol-Myers Squibb, AbbVie, Inc., Celgene Corporation, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., Novartis AG and GlaxoSmithKline.
Request for Free Sample Copy at: https://www.millioninsights.com/industry-reports/hematologic-malignancies-market/request-sample
Market Segment:
Hematologic Malignancies Type Outlook (Revenue, USD billion, 2014 – 2025)
• Leukemia
• Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia
• Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia
• Acute Myeloid Leukemia
• Chronic Myeloid Leukemia
• Lymphoma
• Multiple Myeloma
• Others
Hematologic Malignancies Therapy Outlook (Revenue, USD billion, 2014 – 2025)
• Chemotherapy
• Radiotherapy
• Immunotherapy
• Stem Cell Transplantation
• Others
Hematologic Malignancies Regional Outlook (Revenue, USD billion, 2014 – 2025)
• North America
• Canada
• Europe
• Germany
• Asia Pacific
• China
• Japan
• India
• Latin America
• Brazil
• Mexico
• Middle East & Africa
• South Africa
Related Reports of this Category available at Million Insights: https://www.millioninsights.com/industry/healthcare
About Million Insights
Million Insights, is a distributor of market research reports, published by premium publishers only. We have a comprehensive market place that will enable you to compare data points, before you make a purchase. Enabling informed buying is our motto and we strive hard to ensure that our clients get to browse through multiple samples, prior to an investment. Service flexibility & the fastest response time are two pillars, on which our business model is founded. Our market research report store, includes in-depth reports, from across various industry verticals, such as healthcare, technology, chemicals, food & beverages, consumer goods, material science & automotive.
For More Information: www.millioninsights.com
Media Contact
Company Name: Million Insights
Contact Person: Ryan Manuel
Email: Send Email
Phone: 91-20-65300184
Address:Office No. 302, 3rd Floor, Manikchand Galleria, Model Colony, Shivaji Nagar
City: Pune
State: Maharashtra
Country: India
Website: www.millioninsights.com/industry-reports/hematologic-malignancies-market


text:
SQLstream Launches Webinar on the Internet-of-Things
"The 3Cs of the Internet-of-Things: Conditions, Concerns, Commercialization" will run on April 24, 2014
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – April 17, 2014 – SQLstream, Inc., the Big Data Stream Processors company, today announced that it will host a webinar exploring the potential of the Internet-of-Things. With a focus on monetization, the event will expand on harvesting real-time value from IoT services, discussing technology requirements, security concerns and likely directions for commercialization.
The online presentation will be held Thursday, April 24 2014 at 11AM PST.
Damian Black, CEO of SQLstream, will explore why monetization of smart services for the Internet of Things requires technologies capable of processing in-memory, massive volumes of unstructured data of infinite variety. With Big Data storage technologies (such as Hadoop) unable to produce low-latency, real-time responses, Damian will investigate how real-time smart services for the Internet of Things can be delivered as an extension of existing data storage platforms and enterprise systems, and explore alternative architectures such as stream processing.
Topics to be covered include:
- What is the Internet of Things, and why should we care?
- What are the main areas most likely to experience rapid growth?
- What are the impediments to the development of IoT smart services?
- What are the main concerns regarding IoT implementations?
- What are the data management requirements for IoT services, and how can they be addressed cost-effectively?
To register for this webinar, please visit
ABOUT THE Internet of Things
What exactly is the Internet of Things? And why should we all care? Discussions about ways to monetize Big Data have been flaring lately, and many give credit to the uprising of smart Things. Yet most discussions fall short of addressing the specifics of monetization, and what will ultimately make the difference between realizing the full potential of the Internet of Things and rescue it from succumbing to the hype.
Our latest webinar is addressing the most important question: How can the Internet of Things be made to work? In an hour-long event, we will focus on dissecting the conditions, concerns and requirements for commercialization.
The presentation, held at 11AM PST on April 24, will explore the technology requirements and areas of greatest value potential, tackling a multitude of hot topics such as stream processing, standards, security, privacy and supplier value chains.
SQLstream's Stream Processors automate business processes using real-time analytics from unstructured sensor, log, and other machine-generated Big Data streams. SQLstream Blaze is a distributed, SQL-compliant stream processing platform for real-time smart services. SQLstream offers a full range of machine data integration agents plus integration with Hadoop and other enterprise data management platforms. SQLstream is the recipient of leading industry awards, including the Ventana Research Technology Innovation Award for IT Analytics and Performance. SQLstream is based in San Francisco, CA.
Media contact
Ronnie Beggs, VP Marketing
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Phone: +1 415 758 8342


text:
The Vikings were some of the best sailors of the Middle Ages. They sailed all over the Mediterranean, far up the rivers of Russia and across the north Atlantic to colonize Iceland and Greenland. For a long time archaeologists wondered if they ever made it to other parts of North America besides Greenland. Although some Viking sagas mention a land called Vinland to the west of Greenland, no reliable traces of further Viking settlement were discovered until 1960.
In that year, a Norwegian archaeologist discovered a Viking village on the northernmost tip of Newfoundland, Canada. Called L'Anse aux Meadows, the site includes several houses made from sod put over a wooden framework. One building was identified as a smithy, and another as a carpenter's workshop. Several distinctively Viking artifacts were found, proving they really did make it here.
The settlement has been dated to about 1000 A.D. and doesn't appear to have been used for very long. One interesting aspect of L'Anse aux Meadows is that it looks like a typical Viking base camp for hunting and exploration. That hints at more Viking sites waiting to be found. Archaeologists found butternuts at the site, a plant that doesn't grow this far north, suggesting the Vikings were sailing to the south or perhaps trading with the Native Americans.
%Gallery-150700%L'Anse aux Meadows is now a national park and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. A visitor center explains the history of Viking exploration, and reconstructed sod huts give you a feel for what it was like in those days. Re-enactors explain Viking shipbuilding, cooking, ironworking and navigation. You can even listen to a Viking saga!
There's a lot of natural beauty to the site too, including rare plants and sweeping views of the sea. Icebergs are a common sight. Although L'Anse aux Meadows is a bit out of the way for most visitors to Canada, you'll be rewarded with some fascinating history and a harsh but beautiful landscape.
While L'Anse aux Meadows is the only confirmed Viking site in west of Greenland, several controversial sites in Canada and the United States have been proposed as evidence of an extensive Viking exploration of North America. Tomorrow I'll be writing about those, so stay tuned!
Photo courtesy user Rosino via flickr.


text:
Typically, we try to keep Friday our lightest Simon Says Stamp work day of the week. Most of the staff gets the day off as we work long hours in the warehouse on Saturdays and Sundays.
Since today is Friday, I was able to put the world on hold for just a bit and just soak up extra time with my family. Our baby boy has just learned to walk. Does that mean we no longer have a baby, but a toddler? My heart melts whenever I think of this little guy and warmth literally wraps around my spine. Is there a word to describe the joys of *m*o*t*h*e*r*h*o*o*d*?
We'd love to give you all a sneak peak of what our Design Team has been working on lately. I can't say enough about how lucky we are to have such creative stars working for us! Simon Says Stamp's Design Team is comprised of 21 members from all around the globe!
Soon their work will be featured in our online catalog and we hope to feature each of them in the blog too! Check out the fabulous work they've been creating with our Simon Says Stamp exclusive stamp line.
Comment on your favorite Simon Says Stamp set and we will give the first 10 comments some splenderific* blog candy. There are still lots of sparkly things, rub ons, stamps, books, rollerdoodles, and so much more in our blog candy suitcase from CHA Chicago!
You can view our current catalog of "Simon Says Stamp" sets HERE
Pin It
This Blog | Our Newsletter
Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | LinkedIn | Pinterest | Google+
Simon Says Stamp Challenge! | Vintage Simon Says Stamp & Show Challenge


text:
First Test: 2011 BMW X5 xDrive35i
Continuing the Inevitable Perfection of the Unnecessary
No matter how good BMW makes the X5-and, as we'll explain in a second, the 2011 model is better than ever -- some people will never be able to get past one little point. Wouldn't you rather have a 5 Series wagon? The answer, as the market has born out, is a resounding Nein! Americans seem to want absolutely nothing to do with a proper station wagon.
They'd rather pay more (both in MSRP and gas) to sit half-a-foot higher off the ground. In fact, BMW's not even bringing the sixth-generation F10 Touring (that's BMW-speak for wagon) to the States. It only sold 400 of the 5 Series 5-doors to us Yanks in 2009. That same year, we bought more than 27,000 X5s. You do the business-case math.
Look long and hard at the 2011 BMW X5 xDrive35i and you will notice...here's the thing. Even though the sheetmetal for the E70's mid-cycle refresh is new, you'd have to be the biggest BMW fanboy this side of Bavaria to notice the changes. The nostrils are slightly tweaked, while the fog lights have been repositioned inwards, closer to the grille.
In addition, the blade-crossed supplemental air inlets in front of the wheels are larger and more rounded, more closely mimicking the huge air-suckers found on the front of the X5M. Out back, the taillights are ever so slightly altered, and the exhaust pipes are round instead of ovoid.
Much more newsworthy is what lies under the hood. Like 2010, BMW gives X5 customers a choice of three engines. The twin-turbo 4.4-liter V8 in the xDrive50i remains unchanged, as does the 3.0-liter diesel inline-six from the xDrive35d, but the 3.0-liter gasoline inline-six loses a turbo. However, the turbo it retains is a twin-scroll turbo.
What's a twin-scroll turbo? In a regular turbocharger, exhaust gas from a single header hits the impeller. In a twin-scroll set up, two exhaust headers feed two streams of spent gas into a single impeller 180 degrees apart. This is better because the two streams of gas roughly mimic the inherent smoothness of an inline-six cylinder engine, thereby spinning the impeller in a smoother fashion. This is apparently more efficient. Power, however, is unchanged at 300 horsepower and 300 lb-ft of torque.
Of course, BMW's weird little secret is that the old twin-turbo motor made closer to 330 hp and 330 lb-ft of torque. We have no reason to believe the twin-scroll job is any weaker than the motor it replaces. Check it: 0-60 mph takes place in 6.1 seconds, wowza fast for a six-cylinder SUV. Compare it to the Cadillac SRX Turbo, which features 300 horsepower and 295 lb-ft of torque, yet takes 7.6 seconds to hit 60 mph. Likewise, the BMW dusts off the quarter-mile in an impressive 14.6 seconds at 92.5 mph, while the SRX Turbo takes a still-respectable 15.9 seconds with a trap of 90.7 mph.
The Cadillac obviously weighs more, right? Um, no, not at all. The SRX Turbo flattens the scales with its 4595 pounds. Heavy, of course, but hang on to your sense of outrage -- the BMW X5 xDrive35i weighs a lardy 4794 pounds. That's 199 extra pounds for the X5, for those of you who lack the skills to subtract things up right. How on earth is this possible?
Part of the reason why the Bimmer's so much quicker is of course the fibbed output numbers. Put another way, the twin-scroll motor makes whatever car it's in a perennial ringer. We also suspect that the X5's new fast-shifting 8-speed autobox has something to do with such highfalutin numbers. While the ZF-sourced unit isn't a dual-clutch, it's the next best thing.
The new transmission also allows the X5 xDrive35i to hit an impressive-for-a-near-2.5-ton-vehicle 25 mpg on the highway and a not-totally-terrible 17 mpg around town. Though, as always, I cannot stand the shifter. I don't want to press a button for park-I want to shift into it. Likewise, when I-the driver-pull back into D, that means I'm ready to drive. I don't want to also have to depress a button. One more gripe: You cannot put the X5 into gear if the door's open and your seatbelt's off. Silly.
Like everyone's always said about the X5, for such a big, heavy vehicle, the handling's pretty great, and seems to just keep getting better as the years roll on. Braking from 60 mph takes place in a very good 113 feet, and it clobbered our 200-foot figure eight in 26.3 seconds. Back to the Cadillac for comparison: The SRX took a lengthy 128 feet to stop from 60 mph and nearly a full second longer to scoot around the figure eight. Again, the Cadillac's a six-footer lighter.
So yeah, the X5 xDrive35i is quite the athlete. And while the more potent xDrive50i (with its 407 hp, 450 lb-ft of torque motor) might be faster in a straight line, the six-cylinder X5 feels more balanced, more finely tuned. It's the variant to get (unless you crave the slower, fewer-trips-to-the-gas-station, though more-expensive, low-rpm thrills of the diesel xDrive35d). Remember, you also get a fair amount of passenger room and BMW's elegant, if not a touch Scandinavian, take on modern luxury appointments. Not bad at all, especially considering you can't have the wagon.
2011 BMW X5 xDrive 35d and xDrive 35i | |
Base price | $46,675-$59,275 |
Price as tested | $65,825; $66,325* |
Vehicle layout | Front engine, AWD, 5-pass, 4-door SUV |
Engine | 3.0L/265-hp/425-lb-ft twin-turbo diesel DOHC 24-valve I-6; 3.0L/300-hp/300-lb-ft turbocharged DOHC 24-valve I-6* |
Transmission | 6-speed automatic; 8-speed automatic* |
Curb weight (f/r/ dist) | 5027 lb (50/50%); 4794 lb (50/50%)* |
Wheelbase | 115.5 in |
Length x width x height | 191.2 x 76.1 x 69.9 in |
0-60 mph | 6.9; 6.1 sec* |
Quarter mile | 15.2 sec @ 89.5 mph; 14.6 sec @ 92.5 mph* |
Braking, 60-0 mph | 125; 113 ft* |
Lateral acceleration | 0.81; 0.86 g (avg)* |
MT Figure eight | 27.7 sec @ 0.60 g (avg); 26.3 sec @ 0.68 g (avg)* |
EPA City/hwy fuel econ | 19/26; 17/25 mpg* |
CO2 emissions | 1.03; 0.98 lb/mile* |
*xDrive 35d; xDrive 35i |
MotorTrend Recommended Stories
Trending Pages
Satin Stang! 2024 Ford Mustang Gets New Factory Matte Paint Film, Here's How Much It Costs
Wayfarer Vans' Budget-Friendly Ford Transit Trail Leaves the Shop
2024 Tesla Cybertruck Dual Motor First Drive: Hype Machine or the Real Deal?
2024 Tesla Cybertruck Interior Review: Hands-On With the Wild Pickup's Cabin
2025 Honda Passport: Everything We Know About the Redesigned Midsize SUV


text:
Groupon Inc. CEO and Southfield native Eric Lefkofsky is the latest in a series of billionaires tied to Southeast Michigan who have pledged to give away half their wealth.
Lefkosky, 44, and his wife, Liz, made the pledge this week to The Giving Pledge, an effort started by billionaire investor Warren Buffet and Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, in 2010.
The Lefkofskys are the latest to take the pledge. They join Morningstar Inc. founder Joe Mansueto, fellow Groupon investor Yuri Milner, AOL founder Steve Case, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, filmmaker George Lucas and venture capitalist John Doerr.
Eli and Edythe Broad made the pledge in 2010, and Quicken Loans Inc. Founder and Chairman Dan Gilbert and 5-Hour Energy drink maker Manoj Bhargava joined the pledge in 2012.
"We recognize that perhaps our greatest accomplishment — with the exception of the kids we raise — will not come from businesses we've started, but from the help we provide to people and causes around the world," the Lefkofskys said in a letter on GivingPledge.org. "We believe, with the others who have signed this pledge, that we are truly on the cusp of life-changing achievements that will improve our collective quality of life, and have an everlasting impact on generations to come."
Lefkofsky co-founded Groupon, Echo Global Logistics, InnerWorkings and venture fund Lightbank, and has a net worth estimated at $1.75 billion by Forbes on its list of the 400 richest Americans. They are the largest shareholders in Groupon, with 108.9 million shares worth about $1.1 billion.
He graduated from Southfield-Lathrup High School in 1987 and earned bachelor's and law degrees from the University of Michigan.
Bhargava founded Farmington Hills-based Living Essentials LLC to bring his energy shot to the masses. 5-Hour Energy generated $1.2 billion in sales for 2011 and has helped seed at least $250 million in local private equity funds under Innovation Ventures LLC. It has driven his personal net worth to well over $1 billion.
Besides Detroit-based Quicken, Gilbert is the founding partner of the private equity group Rockbridge Growth Equity LLC, a principal in the venture capital firm Detroit Venture Partners and majority owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers of the National Basketball Association.
Eli and Edythe Broad donated the lead gift of $28 million for the year-old Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University.


text:
(See part 1 and part 2 and part 3.)
The critics of the Lancet study have had just one main argument against it: incredulity. They are like the intelligent design creationists who, because they cannot imagine that life as we know it could have evolved, simply assume that a creator must exist without even looking at the evidence.
Some try and make the case that if the level of deaths are really so high, the media would have reported it. The authors of the study are not idiots. They have considered this question in the light of what we know from other conflicts.
[The figure of 655,000] is far greater than reported by various media accounts and morgue tallies. This is not surprising, as reporting of events from incomplete sources cannot, in any statistically meaningful way, be converted into national death rates. Other than Bosnia, we are unable to find any major historical instances where passive surveillance methods (such as morgue and media reports) identify more than 20% of the deaths which were found through population-based survey methods.
Richard Horton, editor of Lancet writes:
[T]he reason for the discrepancy between these lower estimates and the new figure of 650,000 deaths lies in the way the number is sought. Passive surveillance, the most common method used to estimate numbers of civilian deaths, will always underestimate the total number of casualties. We know this from past wars and conflict zones, where the estimates have been too low by a factor of 10 or even 20.
In the comments to yesterday's post, Eldan Goldenberg refers to a critique of the Lancet study put out in a press release by IraqBodyCount. The main thrust of their comments is that for such a large number of deaths to go under the radar implies massive breakdown of the system. But the Lancet editor seems to be saying that that kind of official undercounting is the norm is such situations, not the exception. It is just that this feature is not highlighted in other situations. Again, the IraqBodyCount critique is not of the study itself but based on the feeling that the figure is 'unreasonable.' But with research, we cannot adjust figures based on the reasonableness. All that surprising results require of their authors is careful scrutiny of the methodology to see if systematic errors have distorted the results. Researchers do not have the luxury of adjusting figures
However, the authors of the Lancet study, like any serious scholars, realize that their study has limitations and reflect on them and their possible effects.
Any collection of information is open to potential bias, and has limitations. All efforts were made to randomly select the households to be included in this survey, but it may have been that households with more deaths or households with fewer deaths were over represented in this survey. The finding that the 2006 results are very close to the 2004 household results suggests this did not occur. As in all surveys, a larger sample would have likely have produced a result with greater precision, although this would have exposed the survey teams to higher risk. In the future, when safety has improved, a large survey will be needed to determine in detail the total implications of the conflict for the people of Iraq.
The households were selected for this survey according to population size we obtained from the Ministry of Planning, but this may not have fully reflected migration within or outside the country. However, it is unlikely that this would have occurred at a scale necessary to affect findings.
Perhaps the greatest potential limitation to this type of survey is the problem people have recalling the date of specific events, especially over several years. Again, the close similarities between the 2004 and the 2006 data suggest this was not a major problem. Households could have concealed deaths from the interviewers, though by promising anonymity to households we tried to minimize this risk. We are certain that households did not report deaths which did not occur, as 92% of households had death certificates for deaths they reported.
Another reason to have confidence in this study lies in the very process of peer review. When papers are submitted to scientific journals, the referees cannot and do not verify the actual data. What they look to see is whether the study has followed good methods and the authors have explored all reasonable alternative explanations before reaching their conclusions. This is especially done when the results are so surprising, as in this case. The editors of Lancet, clearly mindful of the explosive political nature of this paper, sent it to four referees and you can be sure that those referees checked to make sure proper procedures were followed. This does not mean that the results could not be wrong. Peer review has failed in the past to detect errors and is not designed to detect outright fraud. But it does mean that peer-reviewed papers have prima facie credibility and if you want to challenge their veracity, the burden shifts to you to do so. If you want to discredit it, you have to produce contrary data or detect a serious flaw in the methodology, or show that there has been an error in the calculation. I have not seen any criticism along these lines as yet.
The authors of the study also describe how the data was collected.
The two survey teams consisted of two females and two males each with one male supervisor. All were medical doctors with previous survey and community medicine experience and were fluent in English and Arabic. All were Iraqis.
Those of us who wonder how such studies based on surveys can be carried out within a war zone have to give credit to the courage and dedication of the people who did this. I know that people who try to collect accurate information in war zones run great personal risks because what warring factions want to avoid most is any accountability and they resist efforts by people to collect data. This is why fact-finders in conflict zone deserve our greatest respect and admiration. These ten brave Iraqis did not want their names revealed for fear of retribution. The fact that the ten Iraqi doctors were willing to risk their lives to try and get information about their ravaged country did not want to be identified testifies to the dangerous situation they were in and I for one share the sentiments of the study authors when they write: "We express our deepest admiration for the dedicated Iraqi data collectors."
POST SCRIPT: Dawkins and Colbert-What could be better?
Watch a highly entertaining interview of Richard Dawkins by Stephen Colbert about Dawkins' new book The God Delusion